Having beaten world No 1 and former amateur team mate Rory McIlroy in the first round of the WGC-Accenture Match in Arizona in February before losing to McDowell in the third round, the Offaly man might not have relished another encounter with the world No 8.

The round robin format has left Lowry idle for Thursday’s opening day at the spectacular Thracian Cliffs resort near Varna on the Black Sea.

The top two players in each group will progress to the knock-out stages consisting of the last 16 and quarter-finals, played on Saturday and semi-finals and final, played on Sunday.

All matches will be contested over 18 holes of traditional match play.

In the round-robin group stages of the tournament the three players in each group will play each other once. Players will be awarded two points for a win, zero points for a loss and one each if the match is all square.

If, after all matches have been played, two or more players are tied on points the following criteria will be used to determine the order:

Where two players are tied within a group (in any position within the group) then their specific head to head match result will be used to identify which player is placed higher

If two or more players are still tied then those players will compete in a hole-by-hole play-off

If all three players win one match in their respective group then all three players shall play-off.

Lowry misses Thursday but will have his stamina tested on Friday when he takes on South African George Coetzee in the morning followed by a tussle with Swedish Ryder Cup player Peter Hanson after lunch.

“Graeme was quite tough to play against. I think he psyched me out a bit. He’s obviously a great match player and knows what he’s doing. He won the battle that day.

Q How so?

SL “I’m very good friends with Graeme … there wasn’t any chat at all. It took me by surprise because the first couple of days, there was chat for the first couple of holes and then obviously you’d get down to the business end of things.”